


The One Where Éponine Really Likes Her Sleep

by Rinielle



Series: L.E.S A.M.I.S [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends AU, Gen, rated for Éponine's bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinielle/pseuds/Rinielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Éponine and Cosette really don't appreciate being kept up in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Éponine Really Likes Her Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the opening scene of: The One With The Embryos

It’s around three fifteen in the morning when Eponine has finally, finally, had enough.

She storms out of her room, not even bothering to keep quiet as there is no conceivable way that her opening and slamming her door and striding across the apartment can wake Cosette if the row coming from across the hallway hasn’t done it already. Even if she had worried about it, she needn’t have done; Cosette follows suit, coming out of her room a moment later with her hands over her ears and an utterly bewildered expression on her face.

“What the hell is that?” she asks, voice even higher pitched than usual, “Where is it coming from?” and Eponine, who has her hand on the front door already and doesn’t trust her voice to work properly at this time in the morning, simply nods her head sideways to indicate the apartment across the hall, at which Cosette’s face darkens and she strides across the room herself as Eponine pulls open the door. They march across the hallway together and Eponine goes to knock, but Cosette gets there first; banging her tiny fists against the door so fast that they almost seem to blur together. The high pitched whining noise from the apartment stops abruptly, and is replaced almost immediately by several loud barks instead. Cosette doesn’t stop slamming her fists against the door until it opens, revealing a very dishevelled looking Courfeyrac – who apparently has no issues answering the door in his underwear – staring at the little blonde outside his door as if she were utterly crazy.

“What is that _noise_?!” demands Cosette, immediately, and she gets a disbelieving stare from Courfeyrac as an answer. He blinks and gazes over at Eponine as if looking for an explanation, but she glares back at him, and he turns his confused expression back to Cosette.

“The loud banging noise?” he asks incredulously, “Uh, let me think… You!” he answers with force, and she growls – actually growls – and folds her arms across her chest as Marius appears behind his room-mate.

Marius, who is wearing rubber duck pyjamas, and who is currently holding the world’s fluffiest living creature.

Under any other circumstances Eponine is reasonably certain that the scene before her now would qualify for top position in her list of ‘cutest things I have ever seen’. However, it is now three twenty in the morning, and the now silent ball of fur tucked comfortably in Marius’ arms has been whining and howling, loudly, for almost two hours straight. She points an accusing finger at the offending animal, glaring at Courfeyrac, who follows the line of her finger and shifts slightly uncomfortably.

“No!” she says lowly, and with some satisfaction she sees Marius gulp, “ _That_ noise!”

“You uh…” Marius glances worriedly at Courfeyrac as he speaks, “You heard that huh?” and Eponine’s glare hardens.

“Oh, just for the last two hours,” she speaks through gritted teeth, “Where in the fuck has that _thing_ come from?”

“A friend of mine just moved house,” says Courfeyrac, “And uh, well they’re not really allowed dogs,”

“ _You’re_ not allowed dogs!” snaps Eponine

“Yeah but, nobody ever really checks here, their new landlord is actually… well like a landlord,” Courfeyrac replies quickly, and he reaches over to pet the fluffy white head of the dog, Eponine steals herself against the way it turns slightly to lick at his fingers, “And Mindy here didn’t have anywhere else to go so I brought her back here,”

“We were going to keep her in Courf’s room,” says Marius, shifting the little dog in his arms, “But… well the vet said she should probably learn to sleep away from us, or she’d have no boundaries, and so we made her a bed in the living room and… well she doesn’t like it. We think Melanie used to let her sleep on her bed… but the vet said to just let her cry or she wouldn’t learn and… well we didn’t think anyone else could hear her,”

Eponine finds that particularly hard to believe, the whining had seemed almost piercingly loud coming through three sets of doors and walls into her room, how Marius and Courfeyrac could have thought they were the only ones being disturbed by the crying is beyond her.

“Are you serious?” she asks loudly, and both boys wince, “I swear to God you two are the biggest morons I have ever come across! That thing is like a fucking fog horn! You know what, whatever, I have to be up to get ready for a meeting at work in four hours, so I don’t care if you have to stay up with the damn thing all night, I’m going to bed and if one more whine prevents me from reaching my REM cycle, I’m going to come over and castrate you both and maybe then you’ll learn to take responsibility for your dumb animal!” and with that she grasps Cosette’s arm and mutters ‘come on’ to her, and turns to go. Except that Cosette doesn’t move.

She glances over at her room-mate, and finds her with an expression on her face like she’s in physical pain. Her arms are still across her chest, and her teeth are clenched together as if it’s an effort to keep them closed, her whole body is stiff and upright and there’s a very slight gleam in her eye; when Eponine follows her gaze it falls upon Marius and the little dog and Eponine sighs in defeat. At that exact moment Cosette’s resolve to remain angry breaks down entirely, with a high pitched “Aaaaawww” that sounds so reminiscent of the dogs crying that Eponine’s hands instinctively go up to her ears. A moment later a stunned and blushing Marius finds himself crowded by a cooing Cosette and with an armful of suddenly very excited dog.

“Oh you are such a little sweetheart,” Cosette speaks as if talking to a baby, tickling the dog under its snout as it does its very best to lick every inch of her face, “Who’s a good girl?” she says, kissing the top of its little head “Hey? Who’s a good girl?” and Eponine would very much like to point out that just five minutes ago Cosette looked ready to commit murder as a result of the ‘good girl’ she’s now fussing over, but she catches a smug grin on Courfeyrac’s face. She takes a few steps forward, suddenly very glad of the tall genes that run in her family that mean she is only maybe half an inch shorter than him.

 

“Don’t think this changes anything,” she says, in her most menacing tone, and she glances significantly downwards and then back up to meet his eyes. She offers him a sweet smile and begins backing away again, holding up a finger, “One whine,” she says, and takes infinite pleasure in the way he pales and starts shooing Cosette away so he and Marius can close the door. Cosette doesn’t precisely go willingly, and as she had been saying to Marius how sweet it was of him to let Courfeyrac keep his friends dog in their shared apartment, he doesn’t seem too eager to end the interaction either; until Courfeyrac mutters something in his ear and he catches Eponine’s gaze and gulps again. A few moments later Eponine is patting Cosette on the back, as they walk back into their own apartment, and kindly but firmly refusing to let her get a dog of their own.

* * *

In the end ‘Mindy’ winds up going back to Melanie before the week is out. It’s a very long-winded tale about a whirlwind marriage to a very wealthy man that Eponine honestly barely listens to. She’s far too occupied staring blankly at the little pile of blankets where Mindy used to sleep, fighting back tears; the little plastic bag with the dog toys she had bought still in hand. She’s lucky that Cosette is in full on hysterics and that Courfeyrac and Marius are far too occupied trying to calm her down – and explain that Mindy will be far happier with a larger manor garden to run around in – to notice Eponine wiping furiously at her own eyes and stuffing the carrier out of sight into her handbag. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have an explanation beyond that I am so utterly caught up in the idea of Les Amis in the 'Friends'-verse I have to write down every re-imagined scene that enters my brain.
> 
> I'm sorry.


End file.
